Businesses need funding at different phases like when starting a new project, recovering from losses or expanding operations. Starting up a business, however, is the part where funding is almost non-existent. Entrepreneurs must work out ways of making optimal use of their resources in every possible way. This is not however enough. There are other ways of funding your business, and one of the most suitable ways is small business loans. Below are some benefits of small business loans.

Convenient Repayment

The flexible nature of small business loans reflects in their repayment options as well. Banks offer such flexibility since they understand the complexities involved with businesses and their plans are accordingly designed. They may provide repayment plans according to the cash flow to avoid the difficulties in financial management. Borrowers also decrease or increase the EMI according to the financial condition of the company. Also, they can choose bullet payments for periodic repayments.

Flexibility

You can select from different kinds of loans to fulfill specific business needs. Different government schemes offer business loans designed for SMEs for starting, upgrading and expanding the facility. Such schemes do not require third-party guarantee or security. The financial institutions themselves provide the guarantee cover.

Low Interest rates

Banks are usually different from private lending institutions, and their interest rates are also low. It mostly happens in the case of government-backed schemes since they are designed for public welfare, not for the benefit of the bank. Interest rates are also not determined just by the loan amount. There are various factors kept in mind like the viability of the business model, the tenure of the loan, the credentials of the borrower and the condition of the company.

Easily Available

Most banks and some private lending institutions offer small business loans without collateral. This makes it easy for small business entrepreneurs to avail such loans and sustain their ventures. Online applications provided by banks on their websites have made the process simpler than it used to be.

Grow your Business

Finance, technology, and manpower are essential needs of any business. Finance is however a key aspect which makes it possible for businesses to meet all the other needs. Therefore, the required cash flow can be highly critical for expanding your business since it can be used for various purposes to grow the business. You can arrange another facility or buy the required equipment to speed up your business. Additionally, owners have the freedom to use the money according to their preference. It enables them to utilize the funds depending on the needs of the business.

Banks today are realizing the potential of small businesses and offer small businesses loans. They do this in ways such as funding, expansion plans, financing new equipment, and increasing business inventory.…

Digital marketing has gained lots of popularity because it is easily accessible and effective in giving your business visibility online. You can do online marketing via social media, mobile apps, websites, search engines, as well as emails to mention a few. Presented bellows are some of the gains that come with digital marketing. You can also click here to know more about pay per click, which happens to be one of the most effective digital marketing strategies.

High Conversion Rates

Digital marketing makes it simple to convert leads to clients to as they can reach you through numerous avenues. Clients also make purchases from the comfort of their homes which makes digital marketing a lot convenient. Being just several clicks away from your customers your business is much accessible.

Wide Customer Base

Most people spend their time online, and it becomes a stroll in the park to reach out to them. Digital marketing gives you the opportunity to reach out to a wide client base. This will direct lots of traffic to your site which can translate to lots of business.

Measurable Results

With digital marketing, you can measure your results and determine whether the strategies that you have employed are working or not. When using traditional marketing methods like newspapers and billboards, you will have a challenging time trying to know how many people gazed at them. On the flip side, digital marketing allows you to get the numbers that you need to make informed decisions when selecting marketing strategies for your business.

Good Relationship

You can foster great relationships with your clients through digital marketing. The key reason is that you have the change to get in touch with your clients. This gives you the opportunity to solve the complaints that your customers make and rectify the services that they do not like.

Cost-Effective

Digital marketing will save you lots of cash. TV advertisements, billboards, and newspapers can cost you a fortune to use. However, e-marketing is a lot cheaper and will save you notes that you can use to grow your business to the next level.

Customizable

A huge fraction of traditional marketing ways are generic and not appealing to some people. Digital marketing offers you flexibility and gives you the room to personalize your marketing efforts.

Experience

Some digital marketing firms have been in the business for long and know the ins and outs of online marketing. Such experts have handled numerous projects like yours with high success rates.

Scalable

You can change your digital marketing strategies depending on the figures that you collect. If something is wrong, then you can make changes to make things better. If everything is working perfectly then, you can scale your efforts so that you attract more clients and make more profits. You will save lots of cash as you will only be using digital marketing strategies that work for you.…

People who have just gotten their first job can confess that all they dream about is buying that new car they have been dreaming of every time. It is a fact in life that after a person has gotten a house and has become comfortable, the next thing to buy is a car or upgrade the one he or she already owns. But it is a fact that many people are not in a position to purchase a car in cash. Therefore, there is the need for car Loans in Johnson City for financial backing. If you search online, you will find many companies that are willing to finance you. However, you are not supposed to accept a loan if you have not understood these simple points correctly.

Salary

Knowing that you will be able to repay your loan without affecting your monthly expenses is essential. The first thing you need to do is calculate all your monthly costs and know your current expenses. And now that you are purchasing a car, you also need to know the amount you will be spending on fuel and other minor issues like repairs. If you are comfortable with your budget, then you are ready to get that loan and purchase your dream car.

Interest Rate

The next important thing you need to inquire from your lender is the interest rate. Understand that different money lenders have a different lending rate. You should avoid asking for a loan from those who have a high interest rate since the rates usually mean more money on top of the amount that you will receive. Interest is generally denoted in percentage, therefore, do not forget to calculate your margins.

Repayment Period

When requesting for a loan, you should also consider the repayment period. Note that the repayment period can also affect the interest rate you will be charged. Loans that take a more extended period are likely to attract a higher rate since your lender will be waiting for long to get their money back. However, the amount you will be paying on each installment will be significantly lower. Therefore, you should get your math right.

Processing Time

Different lending companies take different period to process a loan. Loans, especially those that are meant to purchase machines and cars take a short time to process. Nevertheless, it is essential that you know how long it will take for you to start driving that new car.…

Financial planning is a significant aspect that each individual should embrace at all times to ensure you have security for your future. You don’t need to have a lot of money before you can embrace financial planning. Financial planning will help you when you are making financial decisions which will build you or destroy you.

However, with proper financial planning, you will attain your financial success because it helps you develop discipline in financial matters. There are many ways through which you will benefit when you embrace financial planning. Discussed in this article, are some of the benefits of financial planning hope they will become an eye opener for you.

Helps in Improving Risk Management

When you do financial planning, you will be able to tell the amount of cover that you need. You require health and life covers as you push on. Therefore, with proper financial planning, you will determine the amount that you will use for each cover. This aspect will ensure that you don’t underpay for the cover or you don’t overpay for the cover.

Aids in Use of Metric Approach To Manage Money

Financial planning will help you to measure milestones on what you have achieved. Achievements are never easts to measure and tell how far you have come. But with proper financial management, you will be in a position to track back and establish the specific milestones that you have achieved. The science involved in financial planning brings about the efficiency of the whole process.

Helps in Reducing Personal Finance

Thirdly, financial planning will help in cutting costs of your personal finance. Financial planning will give you a reason to do away with some costs which are not essential. For instance, after you have done your financial planning, you can decide to do away with investments that carry high charges. Financial planning will help in future visibility. It creates a picture of how your financial stability will be.

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Improves discipline on managing money

Money management is not easy, and most people have found themselves struggling with this. However, when you consider financial planning, you will develop the discipline of managing your money. Similarly, you will experience behavior changes after you have undergone financial planning. Financial planning will keep you aware of your lifestyles expenses. You will know if they are below or above what you are able to afford. This will help you determine some expenses that you can cut off so that you can be within the range that you are able to afford.…

It is certain that most students go through a lot of financial constraints during their studies at the university or college. Unfortunately, some of the students do not have enough strength and innate courage to sail through the monetary problems. They end up being dropouts. Having such people in the society is a major drawback to the development and innovation because their knowledge remains untapped.

Notably, the hustle to make it through university or college education can be solved. With the recent transformation of factors affecting education, any student can be able to access financial help and achieve his or her academic dreams. The following are ways that may guide students to finance their university and college education.

Enrolling in a Work-Study Program

Many of us already know that there is enough free time that a student in a university or college can stay idle. Lectures do not run from morning to evening! A student can be able to make three to four hours in a day. These hours should be used effectively by enrolling in a work-study program.

This program entails employment for students through the university. It can be within the university departments or by outsiders who may be an associate to the university or college. Whatever the case, the program can help a student save quite a lot of money and finance his or her education.

Save for Your Fees Beforehand

This may sound inadequate in raising huge amounts of money that is required in university and college. On the other hand, it goes a long way to gather every penny you ever received for a bar of chocolate from your relatives.

Maybe this can be practiced by high school students whose dreams are to go to the university or college. Whilst that is the case, if one is beyond the high school level, saving earnings from a freelance job can be enough. In a nutshell, the point is saving money, however little it may be!

Apply for Scholarships

According to people who have tried applying for scholarships, searching for viable scholarship foundations and well-wishers can turn into a full-time engagement. However, with time, the tiresome task bears fruits. Once you get a scholarship, it is prudent to get serious and scoop the best grades.

This will prove that you are fully utilizing the opportunity given to you by the sponsor. Actually, the sponsors will always want to maximize their support even if you wish to further your studies.

Apply for a Student Loan

In the recent past, banks have started giving out study loans to needy students. To make the matter more interesting, the loans are payable when the student is done with studies and can be able to raise re-payment installments.

Going for the best private student loans is one of the best ideas a needy student can opt for. Before taking a loan, take time to find out the interest rates at your local bank.

Choose a Cheaper Institution

Save yourself the humiliation of being edged out of college because of lack of fees that you cannot afford. It hurts your ego and may extend to affecting your performance. When choosing an institution of higher learning that you would like to attend, choose the cheapest. While this cannot help you gain money for your fees, it will help you manage the little finances you may have.…

What comes to your mind when you hear someone talk about life insurance? Or maybe you think that you are about to die and you need your family to be compensated. Okay, it’s always quite a thought. Generally, most people believe that life insurance is all about death coverage and nothing else. Sure it is, but it has many benefits that stand a lot in helping your family and close ones. Life insurance will cater for you and your family in your absence, and therefore it is crucial to obtain one. There exists a number of best burial insurance companies that are optimally helpful and offer convenient terms and at a considerable cost. Some of the top benefits that a life insurance comes with include:

Payment for treatment of terminal diseases.

Terminal diseases are everywhere, and they attack anyone. In case you suffer a terminal illness, your insurance company can pay some of your death benefits in advance to cater for your treatment as you still breathe. Very convenient, right? It is this amazing and significant advantage that prompts a lot of people to rush and acquire a life insurance cover.

Tax-deferred financial growth.

If you purchase for yourself a permanent life insurance, then you are guaranteed that you cash will grow indefinitely without fear that will decline in value at a particular time. This gives you financial security consistently and hence financial and investment growth. To make the matter sweeter, the money you receive is tax-free. Then, life insurance is all that you need.

Collateral for policy loans.

I have talked about the financial growth you get with life insurance and here is another added advantage of growing your finances and projects. If you want to get a loan, you do not have to wonder what you will use as security for your loan. The funds accumulated and your death benefits give you enough security to secure a loan with your banking institution. The loans do not have any restrictions on how you will spend the money. The life insurance policy guarantees you a loan anytime and for any valid reasons.

Life planning.

Life is made up of stages which integrate well with most life insurance products that are life stage-tailored for the benefit of the policyholder. Therefore, life insurance helps you to plan well what you need to do in each stage making life to run smoothly. Some of these goals in life include creating wealth for retirement, your children getting married, buying a new house and so forth.…

We’re already at the end of the third month of 2018, and if financial planning isn’t in your New Years resolution, this is the best time to update that list. No matter how old you are right now, or what you’re doing with your life, financial planning is always beneficial. It won’t only get you more organized with your income and expenditures; it will also direct you into saving for your future.

Not much of a finance person? That’s fine, you can always hire a company to give you financial advice, or you can consult with your friends who happen to be studying finance. Check out the reasons below if you’re wondering why you should start financial planning for the rest of the year.

Inflation

Inflation is the increase or decrease in the value of a currency. It depends on the demand and supply for money in a country, and also the import and export. The products that you use daily are mostly produced abroad, and the price of those products can go up or down depending on the inflation from that country. One day your deodorant may cost 5 dollars, while the next day it may cost 6 dollars because now your currency is less valuable in the country where that product is produced. Financial planning will help you sustain inflation so that whatever the value of your currency may be, you’ll still be able to survive.

Long-term goals

We can name the most common long-term goals that every person has, which are purchasing a car, owning a house, education, marriage, etc. And all of these goals are not cheap. That is why you need financial planning to meet your financial goals and ensure that your earnings can be saved for it while still being able to spend enough for your daily needs and entertainment. It is better to plan now and possibly invest so that you may earn beneficial returns over time.

Insurance

A lot of people think that insurance is a waste of money and will trouble you, but this is wrong. Insurance is the only protection you can have for emergencies that will come in life. There are inevitably going to be times where you don’t have enough money for when you break your leg from a biking accident, or your house is suddenly flooded, or you want to pursue your Master’s degree. Financial planning would include purchasing insurances for these events, including the monthly installments you’ll have to pay for it so that you’ll get the security you need in life.

Most of the things that you have been thinking about income and money it’s not true. Because come to think of it may be the first person that you learned about money from is not even rich themselves. The essential independency that anyone will gain the will be so helpful is the financial independence. The tricky thing is that not so many people know of ways to go about the whole process of gaining freedom and it will be so challenging. The step to step guide will be so helpful to many people. Read on to know how to achieve total financial independence.

Income is not wealth

The belief that most people have its if you have a well-paying job that will be the key to wealth. In some cases, it will be right and helpful in having money coming in every month. But the secret to wealth will be how you spend the money because you should spend less than you make. It’s vital that you get into saving and not pay everything that you spend in a month, it will be so helpful so that when it time to get the financial independence you will be able to maintain the kind of lifestyle that you are living without having to depend on the paychecks.

Invest surplus funds

The only way that you will take advantage of the investments plans that are there is having the money that you can invest. The good thing about investing it’s that after you have started investing early, the investment will reach a certain level where the returns that you will be generating will be able to change your life. You might see it taking time, but it’s a slow process which within no time it will amount to something great. So make sure that you cut the extra cost to make room for the investments.

Control over wealth

The moment you realize that you are in control of your wealth and your day that’s when you know that you are indeed wealthy. If you don’t spend time doing what you like and not what you are paid to do, then you are not wealthy yet. So keep on saving to get to that point so that you will not have to worry about spending days miserable. The secret to going about this is investing, and the investment should start early.

Welcome to SUS.DIV and EURODIV website!
Two projects and one aim: to provide a better understanding of cultural diversity

SUS.DIV: a Network of Excellence on Sustainable Development in a Diverse World

SUS.DIV a five-year project (2005-2010) that focuses on the relationship between cultural diversity and sustainable development. It integrates European research capabilities across disciplines and countries to provide our society and polity with the instruments and tools for managing cultural diversity as a key element of a new strategy for sustainable development.

The network is co-ordinated by Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) under the scientific lead of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U.Leuven). The partnership is composed of 32 Institutes from all around Europe and beyond.

SUS.DIV is co-financed by the European Commission, Sixth Framework Programme, Priority 7 “Citizens and governance in a knowledge-based society” (Contract No. CIT3-CT-2005-513438). SUS.DIV started on 1 September 2005.

EURODIV: a Series of Conferences on cultural diversity in Europe

EURODIV is a four-year project (2006-2009) that aims to organise a series of five Conferences on the understanding of cultural diversity in Europe and how to deal with diversity and its dynamics in the globalisation era. Its primary objective is to provide top level training opportunities to researchers.

EURODIV may thus be thought of as the SUS.DIV’s counterpart that focuses specifically on the training of researchers dealing with cultural diversity.

EURODIV is co-ordinated by Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) and is implemented by a partnership of European Institutes.

EURODIV is supported by the European Commission, Sixth Framework Programme, Marie Curie Conferences and Training Courses (Contract No. MSCF-CT-2004-516670). EURODIV started on 1 January 2006.

2 photo by Natasa Radovic.
The photo in the banner is by
Ottavia Castellina.

This web site is the sole responsibility of the SUS.DIV and EURODIV projects. It does not represent the opinion of the European Community nor is the European community responsible for any use that might be made of the information appearing herein.…

Every day, we have choices to make. Such choices include should you have a fruit or should you have a pizza? Should you go for a run, or should you go home and watch a movie? We are faced with different situations that prompt up to make decisions. Some may be good while others may be bad and it is easy to form a habit from constant bad decision making. Just like physical fitness, individuals should have financial fitness. The only way to achieve financial fitness is by practicing good habits. This article shows some of the habits that are often overlooked, but they are the key to financial health and freedom.

Know How Much You Make And Spend

This is the first step to financial health. Be honest with yourself and compute how much you earn. If you have a fixed salary, that should be easy. If your salary is dependent on commissions, you can exclude that. If you have a business, you probably have a high and low season. Look at the trends of the last two or three years and come up with an average. After that, compute your expenses. Try to minimize the expenses by cutting off the unnecessary items so that you can save more.

Stay Insured

Studies have shown that medical expenses are the biggest cause of bankruptcy. Therefore, being insured will help you to keep your finances right. Surprisingly, individuals who have filed for bankruptcy before have been found to have health insurance. It is therefore advisable to get a cover that suits your needs. For instance, if you have dependents like your children or your wife, do not go for the cover that your single friend has.

Develop A Long Term Financial Plan

Having a sense of direction in your life is important. Have a plan of where you would want to be in a few years. Your financial future has more importance than the latest car, phone or even holiday. If you invest in such, make sure that you balance them out with your long term plans and work hard towards ensuring that you abide by your plans.

Get Other Sources Of Income

Your income matters a lot when it comes to having a good financial health. If you have one job, look for alternative sources of income because it is hard to thrive with just one income. Work hard now so that you can enjoy when you retire.…

You can be having a good life but may be at some point; you may require a loan. You can face an emergency situation in your life, and a loan may be the only way out of it. A loan can help you to get some cash that will help you to get out of a financial crisis and help you to cater for your personal needs as well. However, sometimes, getting a loan is not easy because there are some steps that you need to abide by before your loan plea gets approved. Below are some of the steps that should be followed to aid in getting your request for a personal loan approved.

Steps That Will Help To Get Your Loan Approved

Check The Eligibility Criteria

Loan providers often have an eligibility criterion. Most of them prefer the borrowers to be of a particular age, preferably between 21 years to 65 years. They will also check the minimum amount you earn per annum and your previous credit loans. This is because they have to ensure that you are not a defaulter because in case you default, they will make losses.

Verify Your Credit Score

This is one of the first things that the lenders will check before they give you a loan. Therefore, before you apply for a loan, check your credit score to ensure that your loan will not be rejected. Your plea is likely to be rejected when if you have a bad credit score. However, you can improve them to increase the chances of your loan getting approved in addition to fetching attractive interest rates.

Provide Genuine Details

When applying for a loan, it is essential to be truthful in your applications. Fill in correct details because any discrepancies may result in your loan being rejected. It is automatic for the lenders to cross check everything because that is their work. They will, therefore, do follow ups by calling or even visiting you. Giving out genuine information will thus increase the chances of getting your loan approved.

Avoid Several Applications

When applying for a loan, you should ask for a realistic amount that you can pay back. Asking for large sums of money will not get you far because the plea is likely to be rejected. You should also avoid applying for a loan at several places because the lenders will doubt your intentions causing the chances of getting the loan to be approved to reduce significantly.…